


Where Everybody Knows Your Name

by Smokeycut



Category: X-Men
Genre: F/F, Slow Burn, bar au, cheers au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2018-12-24 00:30:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12001173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smokeycut/pseuds/Smokeycut
Summary: When Rachel's boyfriend leaves her, the staff of a certain little bar are there to help her through it. One bartender in particular offers a shoulder to cry on.





	1. Pilot

The rain poured down hard, beating against Rachel's head and shoulders as she bolted out of her car and towards the bar. It was the only building with it's lights on this late at night, and while she didn't recognize it's name as somewhere she'd ever visited before, the building had something cozy about it. She threw the door open and slipped inside, then held it until her boyfriend jogged in after her. She found herself laughing from the brief rush, mundane as it was.

Inside the bar, Rachel took note of her surroundings. Wooden floors and walls, along with old light fixtures, probably from the 70s, amplified the bar's cozy vibe. Brown leather seated booths lined the walls. A few small tables dotted the layout, but the centerpiece, the aspect that brought the whole place together, was the bar itself. Dead center in the room stood a rectangular, closed off bar, with intricate wood carvings along it's sides and two bartenders confined within it's border. One man, one woman, both teasing each other and laughing. Aside from them, and a waitress who was sitting on a cleared table, the bar was empty.

"Kurt, you know damn well that never happened. Come on, Xi'an, tell him," the female bartender said indignantly. 

"Sorry Kitty, I distinctly remember waking you and that girl up after you passed out in the corner booth. And that guy. And that other girl." The waitress poked her tongue out, teasing the bartender, Kitty, further.

"I trusted you, Xi'an," Kitty said with mock disgust before turning to Rachel and her boyfriend. "Hey there, how are you two doing tonight?"

"Uh... we're fine," Rachel started, before stopping herself. "Wait no, not fine. Uh, do you have some napkins we can borrow? My boyfriend spilled his drink in the car, and we don't have anything to mop it up with." Her boyfriend, John, just stood awkwardly in the doorway, avoiding eye contact while she spoke.

"Sure, I'll grab some for you," the male bartender said. Rachel couldn't help but notice his thick German accent. He opened the door to the walled off bar and handed her a handful of napkins, then leaned back against the bar and smiled warmly. 

"You might want to hurry, though," Kitty said while cleaning the bar with a rag.

"Huh? Why do you say that?" Rachel asked.

"Because your boyfriend just left without you." The brunette nodded in the direction of the doorway, and Rachel's eyes followed. Sure enough, John was gone. Furthermore, she could hear the sound of his car driving away. 

"What..."

The male bartender winced, the waitress frowned, and Kitty kept wiping down the bar. Rachel just stared at the door in disbelief. 

"Why would he... that's just... John..."

"Maybe he'll come back?" The German bartender said, forcing hope into the situation. He looked to Kitty, pleading for her to help.

Kitty sighed, set the rag down on the countertop, and exited the bar area. She put a sympathetic hand on Rachel's shoulder. "Try texting him, okay? See what's going on. I'm sure Kurt is right, and he'll come back in a minute or two."

Rachel nodded, but as she reached for her phone, she felt it buzz in her jacket pocket. She pulled it out and checked the received message, and then her face fell further.

"He broke up with me..."

"There are other fish in the sea," Kurt said.

"We were together for a year and a half..."

"What a prick," Xi'an muttered.

"HE STOLE MY FUCKING CAR!"

"Well that's just rude," Kitty said while shaking her head. "Tell you what, I'll get you a ride home after we close. That sound alright?"

Rachel glared at her phone, an unholy fury burning in her eyes that Kitty had, by this point, seen too many times to count. She didn't know what it was about her bar, but it seemed to be a favorite spot for shitty breakups. Still, Rachel's unholy fury was pretty good.

"Fine. Thanks, I guess," the redhead muttered, taking a seat at the counter. Kitty grinned and slipped back inside, grabbed a beer, and handed it to Rachel. 

"You could probably use a drink," Kitty said gently.

"Yeah, thanks. God, what a fucking piece of shit. I thought I knew him, you know?" She took a drink. "After all the shit I did for him? After all the orgasms I faked? I deserve better."

"Mhm." Kitty resumed wiping down the bar as she listened to Rachel's angry rant.

"You know what? I'm calling the cops, and telling them he stole my car." Rachel pulled out her phone and began furiously dialing 911.

"Sure, but you might want to pay for that beer first," Kitty said. "Otherwise I'm gonna have to get our chef in here, and you don't want that."

Rachel paused just before hitting the last button. She looked at Kitty and squinted. "Wasn't it on the house?" She asked.

"Nope." Kitty smirked and leaned in close to the redhead, until their noses were almost touching. 

"Fine. You want a tip, while I'm at it?" Rachel asked, glaring through squinted eyes.

"That'd be lovely," Kitty said, just waiting for the insult she knew was coming.

"Dye your hair. Blondes get more tips." Rachel brought her beer bottle up to her lips and took a long drink from it, making a point to not break eye contact with Kitty. When she had finished, she slapped a few bills down on the counter and held her fist against her cheek, looking off towards the door. Kitty frowned a bit at the sight. She knew it must be rough, being in that situation. She had seen far too many people ending up alone at her counter, and it never felt right. She never knew what to say, though. Her own defense against such a situation was to never get attached, and so she never had advice to offer when people came to her with broken hearts. 

She poured two shots of whiskey, then slid one over to Rachel. The redhead looked at her with tired eyes and sighed. Kitty raised her own glass as Rachel did the same. They downed them in unison, shuddered in unison, and together remembered why they never drank whiskey.

" _That_ one is on the house," Kitty said once she had recovered.

"Thanks..."

"C'mon, red. I'll get Kurt to drive you home."


	2. Sharing Xavier Stories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to update this! I've been struggling with writer's block, but I'm hoping to be more frequent with my fic updates from now on.

The minute that Rachel walked into Xavier's Bar, she heard a cheer, a boo, and a laugh.

Kurt was cheering. Xi'an was booing. Kitty was laughing. Rachel was confused, and felt that she ought to be slightly offended. Just a gut feeling. Xi'an handed Kurt a ten dollar bill with a scowl before going slipping through the door towards the back corner of the room that led to the bar's kitchen.

"Why's she mad?" Rachel asked, sticking her hands into her jacket pockets and looking at Kitty.

"Kurt and Xi'an made a bet on whether or not you'd come back. She lost," Kitty explained.

"And I don't suppose you were too classy to avoid taking part in it?" Rachel asked as she approached the bar and took a seat.

"Nah, I don't make bets on that sorta thing. You had a hell of a rough night, and whether or not you came back here is entirely your own business," Kitty told her with a gentle look on her face.

"Ja, Katzchen made a different bet with us," Kurt cut in from the other end of the bar, where he was cleaning a mug.

"And what bet would that be?" Rachel asked.

"How long it'd take for you to sleep with me," Kitty said with a smirk.

Rachel glared at Kitty and growled deep in her throat, before storming out of the bar. She came back five minutes later and ordered a beer.

********************

"So, why's this place called Xavier's?" Rachel asked Kurt later in the evening. She was nursing her second beer, and it was clear to him that she was more there for the company than to drown her sorrows. He was good at providing company, though.

"Ah, it's a carryover from the guy who owned it before Kitty," he explained. "Charles Xavier. That guy was... something," he said, making a face.

"Good something, bad something, or _something_ something?"

"Something something, for sure. He was this old bald college professor who up and quit his job one day, then started this bar. Thing is, he was a teetotaler. I never once saw him drink while I worked for him." 

"Did he used to drink?" Rachel asked, taking a sip of her beer.

"Nope. Asked him one day, and you know what he told me?" Kurt prodded as he began pouring a drink for Xi'an to take and deliver.

"What?" Rachel asked.

"No idea. I was hammered that night, couldn't remember a thing he said!" Kurt said with a friendly laugh.

"Fucking hell, is everyone that works here just dedicated to fucking with me?" Rachel wondered aloud, sounding less frustrated by the fact, and more seeming as though she was beginning to find the humor in it all.

"Illyana hasn't messed with you yet!" Kitty let her know from the other end of the bar.

"I haven't even met this Illyana. Anyways, what exactly was so weird about this Xavier guy aside from him not drinking?"

"Well, he always wore this plaid three piece suit. Ugliest thing I've ever seen," Kurt said, leaning with his back against the other side of the bar, and facing Rachel.

"I met him one time," Xi'an added as she approached the bar with a few empty glasses. "He spent the entire conversation trying to convince me that president Eisenhower was secretly a bird alien who shaved his plumage to fit in with regular folks."

"Oh man, you want weird Xavier stories? You should talk to Logan when he comes back to town. He's been a regular here since the guy built this place," Kitty explained.

"So what happened to him? How'd _you_ get the bar?" Rachel asked, looking at Kitty with a raised eyebrow.

"Back when I was going to college, I met him when he was a guest lecturer. We hit it off, and then, about a year after I had graduated, I got a phone call saying that he had left me the bar."

"How'd he die?" Rachel asked.

"Oh, he didn't die. He eloped to Hawaii with this old Polish guy he used to play chess with," Kitty told her. Xi'an and Kurt both nodded in agreement.

"And how much of all of this is true?" Rachel stared the trio down and finished her drink, trying, and only partially succeeding, in looking intimidating.

"All of it!" a gruff voice called out from the doorway.

Rachel turned to look, and saw a short man with messy black hair and sideburns, wearing a flannel shirt and a cowboy hat. 

"LOGAN!" Kitty, Kurt, and Xi'an shouted in unison. 

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here. No need to throw a damn party," Logan huffed, making his way over to the bar and taking a seat a few over from where Rachel sat. "I'll have my usual."

"One long island iced tea, comin' up, big guy," Kitty said as she grabbed him a glass. "We were just talking about you, actually. Rachel here was curious about Xavier, so we were telling her some of his, uh... quirks."

"He sounds like a nut," Rachel muttered into her beer.

"Chuck _is_ a nut," Logan said. "He was convinced that he could predict the future. Last time I talked to him, he told me that I was gonna watch a redhead fall madly in love with a brown haired cat."

Rachel stared daggers at Logan, then at Kitty, who was failing horribly at stifling a laugh. When the brunette burst out into a fit of giggles, Rachel just sighed and dropped her head on the bar. From that position, she couldn't see Kitty slip Logan a five dollar bill and thank him for holding up his end of their bargain.


End file.
